Hill 937 was the site of a 1969 battle in central Vietnam, 55 years ago this week, an 8-day fight for control of the hill said to be strategic to US purposes. It became known as “Hamburger Hill,” the place where soldiers were ground up. The US won the hill, at the cost of 72 soldiers killed and 372 injured. On June 5, just two weeks after it was conquered, the US abandoned the hill, deciding it wasn’t all that important after all.
Perhaps this is what people mean when they ask “is that a hill you want to die on?” Perhaps they are asking thoughtful consideration of the value of the thing, a pre-determination that there is something vital about the thing that can be gained no other way — and without which something crucial would be lost. Perhaps.
But perhaps not. It seems to me that the question — is that really a hill you want to die on? — has become an invitation to conclude there is nothing really worth risking our lives over. And perhaps some folks feel that way.
I’m thinking of this because twice in the past few days someone has asked me that — and both times in relation to the mission of the church. They didn’t ask because I was staking my life on carpet color or hymn selection or even on helping retire a church organist past her prime, but because I said removing the US flag from our worship spaces is central to our lives as Christians.
That’s not a hill you want to die on. Isn’t it, though?
Some disagree with me. What’s the harm of a flag in worship if it makes the old-timers feel good? Why bother to remove it if hoards of people would up and leave (and take their offerings with them)? (Idolatry comes to mind…)
So I’ve been thinking. This essay isn’t really about flags in worship, although that matters and I’ll offer a couple of words. It is more about standing for something. Because my experience is that mostly the mainline church’s clergy have no hills on which they are willing to die. No hills at all.
Let me say first that I think the “greatest generation” has done the church a massive disservice, leaving us a legacy we are struggling to overcome.
Mostly, after WWII was done, they recreated the modern church in bed with Constantine. Again. Flags in sanctuaries, national songs, special worship for Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, July 4, Scout Sundays (boys and girls) featuring color guards. We are here because eight decades, four generations, of clergy have either endorsed or embraced or endured Church and State co-conspirators, and left us completely unable to discern which hills are worth dying on. And maybe they learned it from their warring predecessors, who learned it from theirs.
Regardless, church as we’ve come to know it is wrapped so tightly in empire we can’t breathe the Spirit’s breath or imagine a way out. Being a good Christian and being a “good American” have become synonymous, which is pouring fuel on the fires of fascism we are facing — or minimally leaving us standing bucketless in the face of it. White Christian Nationalism is upon us, and flags in churches are a symptom, a sign that something has gone horribly wrong. The alternative community of Jesus does not — cannot — bear a national flag — ours or anyone else’s. We cannot simultaneously celebrate and stand against empire. We can’t.
The “greatest generation” has left the church in such a state that the average career tenure for new ministers just coming from seminary is five years. Five years, because the church doesn’t get what matters most and won’t listen to truth tellers trying to help them sort it out.
No one wants to die on a hill, not ever, not any hill. That’s true. But there are hills that demand we challenge them if we are to be followers of Jesus (or just generally good humans) — genocide in Gaza and elsewhere, water poisoning in American cities, racial justice and police violence, LGBTQ rights and wellbeing, economic wholeness and bodily autonomy, immigration and a hostile border. We the church, those who live in the footsteps of Jesus, have no other reason to exist as community than to challenge injustice and create that alternative to empire Jesus was always talking about.
One of my favorite sacred songs — not sacred to most people, but to me — is Sara Bareilles’ Brave.
You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody's lack of love
Or you can start speaking up
Nothing's gonna hurt you the way that words do
When they settle 'neath your skin
Kept on the inside with no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if you
Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave…
To be clear, most of us most of the time aren’t actually pondering what hill we want to die on, but what hill we are willing to be disliked on. And yes, there is risk, more of joblessness than of death in the U.S., but risk nonetheless. As Bareilles sings, sometimes the shadow wins. That is pretty much the crucifixion story. Sometimes the shadow wins. But there is resurrection. We are people of resurrection. And we are called to be truth tellers.
Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is…
Or as the psalmist wrote: I lift up my eyes to the hills…